


The Man They Called Frenchie

by GreenEyedDevil



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Casual Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Violence, implied non con, mentions of rape/non con elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenEyedDevil/pseuds/GreenEyedDevil
Summary: No one knows Frenchie's real name.Not even Frenchie.Not sure what this is yet. A study in Frenchie.There are mentions and allusions to his childhood, references to abuse and some other nasty stuff, so please read on cautiously. I mostly want to explore the character, what is known, what isn't.Please feel free to comment.
Relationships: Hughie Campbell/Starlight | Annie January, The Female | Kimiko/The Frenchman
Comments: 12
Kudos: 83





	1. 1

_The man they all called Frenchie didn’t know exactly when he forgot his real name. Papa had given him a new one every few months, would wake up one day and call him Phillipe or Daniel or Santiago or Karl, always something new, always changing, dozens or hundreds over the eyars. He would tell Frenchie they came from Barcelona or St Peterburg or Tel Aviv or Lisbon, a hundred towns and cities across every country they could reach by car or train, but never the right place. Papa spoke many languages he made Frenchie to learn by ear and would claim it was their native tongue. He would speak of Mama as tall, short, fat, thin, blonde, brunette, her eyes blue or brown or green. He lied so much that Frenchie started to lose track of the truth._

_Papa taught Frenchie the identities and the names and the lies and stories with his fists and with burning cigarette ends if Frenchie didn’t catch up soon enough. To make him forget the truth Papa gave him medicines, cough syrup from the pharmacy or weed and pills and powders from teenagers with headphones and skateboards. Sometimes the pills came from older men in alleyways and dark doorways and when Papa couldn’t pay, Frenchie had to. The medicines made him feel strange, sometimes dazed and sleepy, sometimes full of so much energy he couldn’t keep still, colours would seem brighter and his mind would feel like it was endlessly unfolding and anything Papa said would be the most important thing in the world. And Papa said so many things. As a child the medicine made it so hard to keep track. As a man, the medicine was the only thing that made the chaos in Frenchie’s head make sense._

_The medicine made it hard to keep track of where they where, where they where going, to know which bus or train they had boarded, which border they had crossed. The medicine made it easier when they had no money for a ticket and to cross a border they had to beg a truck driver for a ride and Frenchie had to pay then, too._

_The boy he used to be had tried to remember. He had written his name on every sheet of paper, carved it into table tops or scratched it into the walls of the closets when Papa would lock him inside but then a day came when was writing a name and he stared at it and realised it was wrong. He didn’t know how or why it could be wrong and he didn’t know what it should be. He just knew it wasn’t the name his mother called him._

_The only thing he could remember was his house. It was on a hill near the sea and the front door was painted blue, chipped and peeled by the salty air. Vines and flowers clung to the walls and from Frenchie’s bedroom window he could see the beach and the waves. And when it was full, the moon._

_He missed his name as much as he missed Mama but he missed hearing her say it the most. In a strange sort of way he could remember that. Not the word, of course, but the feeling, the love in her voice when she called to him._

_In a way he could never explain to people, if Frenchie concentrated he could remember her face from the night Papa took him. He couldn’t see her, wouldn’t be able to describe Mama to people, or pick her from a photograph. But he could see her. See her eyes. The pain and anguish and fear._

_He had nightmares sometimes. And in his nightmares he could see Mama and he knew his home and he could hear her saying his name, so clearly. But when he woke, his name, Mama…it was always gone._

++

Frenchie’s eyes opened in the dark of the cool, dark room and he lay in the silence, waiting for his hear to stop racing and his pulse to stop roaring in his ears. He’d dreamt of Papa and his walks, his foul Gauloise cigarettes. He’d dreamt of the men Papa took him to meet on these walks. Frenchie marvelled at the fact he couldn’t get used to nightmares. He’d had them every night of his life and they still held the same terror. Sometimes he could fall back to sleep but he knew at once this was not such a night. His mind itched. It buzzed and tingled and he though Frenchie didn’t hear ‘voices’ the way Papa had, he heard _something_ in his head that would start to sound like hundreds of whispering voices, soon enough. It was like standing outside a room, listening to the people inside try to talk in secret, hearing the sussuration of their voices without being to pick out the words. Frenchie felt a tremor run through him and sat up in the camping cot he was using for a bed, reached for the milk crate that he’d set a small lamp atop, his hand patting at the plastic grill and finding nothing. He leant over, found the lamp and switched it on, glanced around, but couldn’t spot the bottle of pills he was looking for.

Frenchie cursed and stood, slid into his boots, the hissing whispering voices filling his ears. He heard Papa’s voice, calling calling a dozen names, growling them, snarling them. He could feel Papa’s hand on his throat, his hot, rancid breath on Frenchie’s neck. Frenchie knew he had more pills, or some monstrously strong weed. He had to. He had to or he had to go out, now, and find Arnold and get some. Frenchie made his own pills but his friend Arnold provided the LSD and he had a stash of his own medicines and remedies that would settle Frenchie’s mind until he could make his own.

Frenchie headed out into the abandoned apartment he’d long since converted into a squat, shuddered against the chill. Hughie, Billy’s new pet, slept soundly on the fold out couch he didn’t know Frenchie had rescued from a rain soaked, feral cat filled alleyway and dried out with space heaters. Hughie looked like a college student, though he was in his late twenties. He was still gangly and lean, hadn’t hit that last adult growth spurt that would shake off those last youthful soft edges. Time spent with Billy Butcher would help. He had a way of ageing people. Frenchie crouched beside the pull out couch, leant beneath as quietly as he could, caught the handle of a tin lunchbox with the tip of his fingers.

He slid it out, opened it quietly and scanned the contents. There was plenty of tobacco, rolling papers, blunt papers, but no weed, and no pill bottle. Frenchie whispered a curse to himself, rose again, turning in the low light to search for his jacket. He spotted it across the room, crept around the couch but Hughie was stirring, sitting up suddenly.

“Whassup?!” Hughie said sleepily. “Whassapning?”

“Nothing, Petite Hughie,” Frenchie said quietly, trying to tune out the incessant whispering in the back of his mind and trying to ignore the shadows in the corner forming shapes that looked like Papa. He’d never forgotten Papa’s face. Not ever. No matter how hard he tried. “I have to go out, run an errand.”

“What time is it?” Hughie asked, throwing back his blanket and reaching for his own shoes. “I could use a morning walk.”

“One am,” Frenchie said. “Or thereabout.”

“What’s wrong?” Hughie said, less sleepy now, standing and turning. “What do you need?”

Frenchie ignored him, shrugged into his jacket, checked he had his wallet, checked it had cash. “Coffee, for breakfast,” he lied. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. In the corner, the shadows that looked like Papa moved, as if he was raising a cigarette.

Hughie followed behind, grabbing his own jacket. “I can go for a walk for coffee,” he said.

“Very kind,” Frenchie said, trying not to sound terse, “but there’s no need. Besides, you wont want to go where I’m going,” he told him.

“Well then, I’m definitely coming,” Hughie shrugged, “if I don’t want to go that means it’s shady, or dangerous, and I’d be a dick if I let you go alone.”

“I’ve managed just fine before now,” Frenchie said, giving his back to Hughie, feeling the other mans eyes on him. He could feel Papa’s eyes on him too and the whisper voices where a constant hiss. Papa was edging closer, out of the shadows, the shapes taking on weight.

“You kinda look like shit, dude,” Hughie said. “So, I’ll be worried and I’m not gonna go back to sleep until you come back anyway. You can let me come, or live with the guilt of knowing you woke me up just to leave me sitting here. So…” Hughie shrugged.

Frenchie closed his eyes for a second. Papa was pacing now, and the voices were whisper whispering and there was an energy in Frenchie’s limbs that was uncomfortable. His mind raced from subject to subject, half a line of a song looping around at the back of his mind even while he ran through all the routes he could take to Arnolds, remembered the van needed gas, recalled the need to text a customer he sold guns to to arrange a later pick up for their next deal. There was so much more and he couldn’t quell any of it and he could smell Papa’s cigarettes.

“Frenchie?” Hughie said quietly, sounding concerned. Really concerned, not mad or pissed off like Billy or MM would. Frenchie felt something give just a little. Company might not be so bad.

“Okay,” Frenchie said quietly. “You can come.”


	2. 2

“Why did we take the subway?” Hughie asked, realising it was far too late to ask as the train rocked along the tracks. The carriage was empty but for one other rider, a woman in hospital scrubs who wore headphones and tried not to doze off.

Frenchie sat beside Hughie, hunched over, one leg bouncing incessantly, smoking in flagrant defiance of the many signs dotted around advising against just that.

“I can’t drive right now,” Frenchie said and Hughie tried not to shudder at the way Frenchie stared at one empty seat in the carriage, as if someone was sitting there, someone he might have been afraid of.

“I could have,” Hughie pointed out carefully.

Frenchie blinked, licked his lips, nodded jerkily. “I might have forgot about the van,” he admitted.

Hughie frowned, felt the little bubble of concern in his gut burst into something more serious. Frenchie was pale and sweaty and it wasn’t just one empty seat that seemed to be drawing his attention. His eyes kept flicking around, as if he was hearing or seeing something and even when Hughie spoke and Frenchie answered, it was if Frenchie was listening to something else, only giving Hughie half of his attention.  
”It happens,” Hughie managed. “I uh…I guess we’re not going for coffee, huh? Unless it’s really special coffee,” he said.

“Non,” Frenchie nodded, “not coffee. I ran out of a few things.”

“Is this a come down?” Hughie asked gently.

“Something like that,” Frenchie said quietly.

“Should I shut up, or would talking help?” Hughie asked. “I used to do a little molly in college. Come downs are a bitch. And, no offence, but I guess you don’t…come down often?” he said with a smile.

Frenchie returned it though his was still strained. “I try to avoid it,” he agreed, taking a long, shaky drag on his cigarette. “Sorry that I disturbed your sleep.”

“You didn’t,” Hughie said. “It wasn’t especially restful sleep. I keep uh…seeing that guys head burst.”

Frenchie took a deep breath and Hughie pretended not to notice how he shook while he did. “And seeing…Transucent. And Robyn.”

“You’re developing a very strange pattern,” Frenchie pointed out and Hughie chuckled, not because it was actually funny but because these days, it was that or start screaming.

“Here’s hoping the next violent death I see is an implosion,” Hughie said. He paused then, felt a pang of the panic and anxiety he’d been feeling since Translucent, felt it curdle into something more potent He glanced at the woman at the other end of the carriage. Her headphones were loud enough Hughie could hear the faint, scratchy, spider in a matchbox noise of her music. Her eyes were closed, her head dropped back against the window, mouth half open as she gently snored. “I uh…I’ve been thinking a lot about Translucent,” he admitted quietly. “I…can’t stop, actually. Like, at all. I keep…seeing it when I close my eyes. I can hear him…asking for me to…to not. And I keep telling myself he was a bad guy, and we’re the good guys, but that doesn’t…help.”

Frenchie took another deep breath and finally turned to look at him. His dark brown eyes were wild around the edges, more so than usual, something feral finding it’s way in through cracks in what ever armour of Frenchie’s that was failing. But there was kindness in them, concern.

“It wont help, Mon Ami,” Frenchie said softly. “You know why.”

Hughie frowned, because he didn’t know. Or maybe he did but he wasn’t close to working out for himself yet. “I don’t,” he said simply.

“Because there’s no good guys, or bad guys. There’s just people, who act,” Frenchie said. “If you tell yourself otherwise, you justify no end of sins.”

“So we’re _not_ the good guys?” Hughie asked quietly.

Frenchie ‘s brow creased thoughtfully, “Translucent thought he was a good guy. Homelander does,” he said. “Everything they do, they do as ‘good guys’, “ Frenchie said. He paused, thought about it, “The Nazis thought they were the good guys. You see? If you declare yourself good, then all your actions are good. What ever they are.”

Hughie sat back then. That made a strange kind of sense. “So how do I justify it?” he asked. “If only to myself?”

“You don’t,” Frenchie said. “You don’t make peace with killing by justifying it. When you pushed the button, where you thinking about his crimes?”

Hughie shook his head. “I was thinking if he walked out, we would all be killed,” he said and Frenchie nodded.

“And that is how you live with it. Not justified. Very few deaths are justified. The rest are just necessary. To keep you, to keep us, alive,“ Frenchie said. He raised his cigarette, turned away again.

“So no good guys or bad guys?” Hughie said. “Just…him or me, in that moment?”

Frenchie nodded, gave him a small, sad smile, “oui.”

Hughie sat back as the subway carriage rocked it’s way around a long bend. Frenchie was staring at the chair again, his head tipped to one side, moving slightly as if he was listening to someone speak.

“Why was it necessary for you?” Hughie heard himself ask. “When you…I guess that first time,” he said, recalling that conversation he’d had with Frenchie the first night they had met, when Frenchie had calmly answered deeply personal questions about killing people, about carrying the deaths with him like scars. “What made it necessary?”

Frenchie sat back again, smoked slowly, “I needed money to eat and I didn’t want some old creep to fuck me again,” he said, voice gone faraway.

Hughie frowned, “And that’s why you…the woman from the elevator?” he asked and Frenchie turned to him slowly, watched him a moment, looked like he might have been hearing the words for the first time. Hughie repressed a shudder. He knew Frenchie was a mercenary, a killer, one who wouldn’t and hadn’t hesitated to torture Translucent before finally forcing explosives up the mans ass to enable them to kill him. Despite that, Frenchie didn’t seem like a killer, didn’t have that sharp edge Billy did, those shark eyes, like a cold, calculating predator.

Not until right now.

The look he gave Hughie was downright alien. Hughie didn’t know what to do with it, what to do about it so he just sat. Frenchie blinked languidly, “Yes,” he said simply, and then nothing more.


	3. 3

Hughie had never felt more like a skinny, lanky white nerd than he did sitting in Arnold’s apartment at two am. Arnold was Hughie’s height but stocky and muscular, with olive skin and curly black hair. He spoke with a faint Arabic accent and he wore some kind of scrubs, a lab ID and heart shaped sunglasses when he opened the door to his apartment, releasing a visible cloud of potent weed smoke. By that point, Frenchie had quit talking and kept staring at corners like he was afraid something would crawl out of them. Arnold had answered and taken one look at Frenchie, handed him the blunt he held and motioned them inside.

At first they did nothing. Frenchie sat quietly and finished the blunt while Arnold rolled a monstrous second one. Hughie tried to relax. Arnold’s place was comfortable, an actual apartment, with separate rooms and walls that hadn’t been smashed down. It was nicely decorated, something like what Hughie might have done, with selected framed movie posters lining the walls, between bursts of personal photos, grouped in clusters as if arranged by what occasion they documented. It smelled good too, of incense and something in a pot on the hob. Hughie’s stomach growled.

Arnold lit the blunt and passed it off to Frenchie before he stood, walked into the bedroom and returned with a carved wooden box.

“Is it a bad one?” Arnold asked Frenchie as the smaller man sat back on he couch, closed his eyes and smoked.

“He’s in the corner,” Frenchie said and Hughie frowned, felt a jolt of alarm and looked around the room to see who he meant. There was no one except Arnold, who reacted to the declaration with a shrug.

“We know how that goes,” Arnold says. “Finish that, tell me where he is, then we can talk about this,” he tapped the box, sat back down on the couch. It was like he was talking about regular medicine, not high strength hallucinogens.

Frenchie was nodding but he didn’t seem happy about it. He sat forwards, smoked some more, eyes burning, focussing on nothing, but doing it far too hard, like he was trying to tune something else out. His eyes kept darting to a spot just behind Hughie and the back of Hughie’s neck was starting to itch as if someone really was there.

Frenchie was smoking the blunt the size of a carrot like a college kid might inhale the days twenty fifth stress cigarette. Hughie was getting a buzz off the smoke alone but Frenchie almost seemed like he was in pain. He stood suddenly, crossed to the expensive sound system Arnold had and crouched in front of it of a pile of records, digging through them in a way that reminded Hughie of himself at high school when for a year he set aside his Supe obsession and got really into music. Frenchie picked a record, put it on a vintage record player that was hooked up to very new speakers. The music that poured out was nothing Hughie expected. He was used to Frenchie listening to angry French rap but this was Clair de Lune. Frenchie crossed to the window and opened it, climbing out onto the fire escape and sitting down with his legs dangling over the edge, the blunt still in hand.

“If he’s jonesing, why can’t he just get high?” Hughie asked Arnold, who was rolling a regular joint.

Arnold paused looked up at him, dark eyes staring over the top of his shades as if noticing Hughie’s presence for the first time. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Hughie fired back.

“I’m a drug dealer with a gun,” Arnold said but he wasn’t threatening, just pointing out that Hughie didn’t exactly have the high ground.

“I know Frenchie through…work. I’m staying with him,” Hughie said. “I’m Hughie.”

Arnold took a breath, “You’re a friend?” he asked, not without suspicion. “Of his?”

“Would he bring me here if I wasn’t?” Hughie asked him.

“He might. Good way to get someone off your back is take them to someone you know for a fact has a weapon, and no qualms breaking the law,” Arnold pointed out. Hughie felt his eyes widen. “But,” Arnold said. “He could take you in his sleep, even if you’re armed and he’s not. I mean no offence, kid, but you’ve clearly never been in a fight in your life.”

“I have,” Hughie said. “Against Lisa Hargitay, in third Grade.”

“What she do? Steal your woman?” Arnold asked.

“And my juice box, “Hugh nodded. “I mean I respected Becca going to live her truth but you mess with a mans juice box? I pulled Lisa’s hair but good,” he said.

Arnold smiled at him and it was friendly, warm. Hughie felt something unclench a little.

“Well you got me there. But Frenchie can handle himself better than an eight year old girl, so…you’re probably good people,” Arnold said, but he was staring at Hughie as if to make clear he wasn’t being trusted on face value alone.

“Funny…Frenchie was just telling me there’s no such thing as good people,” Hughie said nervously.

Arnold peered at him a moment. “Oh. You’re one of _those_ friends,” he said, nodded. “Okay,” Arnold looked him over appraisingly. “You know the British dude, right? The crazy bastard.”  
”How can you tell?” Hughie managed a small smile and Arnold chuckled.

“When people just know him,” he nodded to the window, “they look a certain kinda scared. But excited, too. Like…this cat’s crazy, but, maybe I wanna see what happens. When they know Frenchie _and_ that other asshole they just look…afraid,” he said, sounded bitter. He cast a long look after Frenchie, looked thoughtful. He turned back to Frenchie. “You met him through Butcher?” he asked and Hughie nodded. “How long ago?”

“Uh…this was…I met them slightly less than a week ago,” Hughie said.

Arnold shook his head as if at some old frustration. “Typical.”

Hughie watched Frenchie too. “So why can’t he just…get high?” he asked again. “if he’s sick?”

Arnold frowned as if trying to work out his wording, “He’s not…trying to get high,” he said carefully. “Not like you might. This,” he tapped his head, “works different for him. It’s…more chaotic the more sober he is, you follow?”

“No offence,” Hughie said carefully, “but are powerful hallucinogens the best way to manage that?”

Arnold smiled, his joint finished. He lit up and sat back, “Thorazine doesn’t work for people like Frenchie.”

Hughie frowned. “Wait…what…are people like Frenchie? Mentally ill?”

“Not…traditionally,” Arnold said as he exhaled weed smoke that made his voice sound strangely thick, “Not to where anti-psychotics make a difference.”

Hughie was quiet a moment, in part because he had to admit that Frenchie seemed crazy in some way a psychologist would struggle to pin down but also because Arnold passed him the joint without even asking if he wanted it. Hughie took a small toke, found the weed as strong as he suspected. He passed it back to Arnold. Frenchie was still on the fire escape, head turned as if he was listening to something. Something Hughie knew instinctively was not their conversation.

“Then what?” Hughie asked Arnold as he started to feel the first giddy waves of the high.

“He’s what ever you are when you probably start taking Molly before you lose your milk teeth,” Arnold said, watching Frenchie. “Or being given it.”

“Who would give a little kid MDMA?” Hughie asked but even as he said it it remembered Frenchie’s mention of a bipolar father who had tried to _smother him._

 _“_ I’m mostly speculating, I don’t know anything about him for sure,” Arnold admitted. “I got some friends I know who I know for a fact, had real…catastrophic childhoods. Abuse, poverty, mental illness, drugs…LSD in the breast milk, edibles for breakfast, violence and rape for dinner. My man out there makes them seem like they grew up on the Prairie, you know?”

“You think he was abused?” Hughie asked, feeling loose and too relaxed for this conversation. Or maybe as relaxed and loose as this conversation needed. It might be far worse without a filter.

“Like I said…I don’t know. But…I know people like him don’t happen because they were raised in loving, supportive environments. That,” Arnold pointed at Frenchie. “Happens because you take some bright shining kid and you break them every way they can be broke. And maybe you give ‘em the drugs for compliance or maybe they take it to escape but the combined trauma and those chemicals in a developing brain? _Fauda,”_ Arnold said a word, his accent suddenly getting stronger, motioned to his head as he said it. Hughie frowned as the man handed him back the joint. “Chaos,” Arnold explained. “But…manageable chaos.”

“Manageable by self medicating with massive doses of strong hallucinogens,” Hughie said. “Seems…counterproductive.”

“The whole time you known him he’s been high. He seem like he’s hallucinating to you?” Arnold asked and Hughie had to shake his head. Frenchie seemed too at ease with violence and, anarchy and going after Supes and he wanted to test the ‘V’ and he didn’t seem to be afraid of Supes at all. But he didn’t seem like he was seeing ghosts or pink hippos on parade. He did _now_.

Outside, Frenchie kept smoking, so Arnold and Hughie did too, passing the joint back and forth for a while. Arnold rolled Frenchie a new blunt and after a while, took it and the box and went to sit by the window.

“Yo,” he said and Frenchie half turned his head. “You ready?”

Frenchie shook his head, a tiny motion, accepted the blunt Arnold handed him. Arnold came back, sat down, started on another joint. “You never did say why he can’t have it right now,” Hughie realised. “I mean…look at him,” he eyed the forlorn little figure.

“He’s too…in it now. He smokes a little it’ll wind him down, he can…get on the right vibe, you know? So when he starts to roll he doesn’t have a bad trip.”

“Like lining your stomach,” Hughie realised. “He seems pretty uncomfortable though. Will pot work?”

“Usually,” Arnold said. “And then he can have the real shit. I made the mistake once of letting him dose up when he was still jumping at the shadows,” he looked up at Hughie, fixed him with a level stare. “If you’re gonna be around him, it’s important you know _never_ let that happen. If it does,” Arnold pulled a business card from his pocket and flicked it towards Hughie, “call me. Seriously call me, any time day or night.”

Hughie took the card, held it, examined it as if it would make the night make sense.

“Who is it he sees?” Hughie asked.

Arnold was grinding up weed with a metal toothed grinder, “someone I hope is dead,” he said simply, a faint anger running under his voice, his eyes drifting to that vacant spot behind Hughie. “I like this cat. For a lot of reasons, he’s good company. All the time I’ve known him nothing spooks him. But who ever he sees frightens the living shit out of him. So…fuck _that_ person.” He finished the joint and set it down, stood and walked into the kitchen. He stood before the hob, lifted the lid off what ever was cooking and stirred it. Hughie checked the time, realised it was still decidedly the wee small hours but Arnold seemed to be cooking dinner.

“You just get off?” he asked and the man nodded. “Sorry we crashed your evening.”

“I’m a drug dealer, dude,” Arnold told him with an easy smile. “Besides, it’s an emergency,” he set down the spoon, leant against the counter. “You said you’re staying with him?” he asked. “He must like you.”

“I think it might be more…Circumstantial than that,” Hughie admitted but Arnold shook his head.

“He ask you to come here?” he asked.

Hughie shook his head, “No. I insisted.”

“He let you though,” Arnold said. “He likes you man. Trusts you. Hey! He…he tell you his name? I got a bet with myself it’s something nerdy.”

Hughie frowned then, glanced at Frenchie outside. “His name?” he asked.

“You don’t think it’s seriously ‘Frenchie’?” Arnold asked him.

Hughie started to speak then stopped. “I…no, but I didn’t actually…think about it,” he realised. “Shit. You don’t know?”

Arnold shook his head. “I’ve only met that MM dude and he doesn’t either,” he turned back to his food. “Damn it. One of these days,” he said to himself.

Hughie started to speak again but on the fire escape, Frenchie was moving, drawing his legs back up to the catwalk but not coming inside yet. He moved so he sat sideways to the window, the external wall, his bag against the railings. Arnold carried his box back over to the window, climbed halfway out so he sat on the catwalk, legs still inside. Hughie could see Frenchie watching him. The expression he wore could only be described as wretched, forlorn, his eyes sad, his expression hunted and haunted. Hughie felt bad, looked away, looked down at his feet. He could hear them talking, knew it wasn’t English, but it wasn’t French either, not from either of them. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised Frenchie was multilingual but he still found himself smiling. They spoke for a while, Hughie glancing up occasionally to see Frenchie still huddled up but his expression seeming to soften, some of the tension seeming to leave him. He gave ghosted, fleeting smiles at something Arnold said, smoked the monstrous blunt and after a while he seemed still. Not calm but calmer than he’d been. He was listening to Arnold with full attention, no half tilted head as if he was listening to something else at the same time, and his eyes were no longer drifting over to the dark corners and the shadows, to some spot behind Hughie or Arnold’s head.

Arnold said something that made them both laugh. Hughie felt a tickle in his throat, walked over to the sink to run himself a glass of water. He turned back to see that Arnold was sitting out on the catwalk across from Frenchie, his carved box open in front of him, a pill sitting on the end of his outstretched finger for Frenchie to take with his tongue, like communion. There was a fair amount of heavy eye contact and Hughie turned away, blushing, feeling like a third wheel, wondering what Arnold and Frenchie would do if he wasn’t here. Wondering if they’d do it anyway and he’d have to sit on the couch and wait it out.

Arnold and Frenchie climbed back into the apartment and Frenchie looked as if he’d sit back down on the couch. But his eyes drifted to Hughie and then just a bit past him. They stayed there and Frenchie’s eyes widened imperceptibly. Hughie shuddered but fought an urge to turn to look, worried it might feed into Frenchie’s anxiety.

“We should go,” Frenchie said, Arnold frowning as he closed the window behind them.

“You should sit down and watch the Netflix channel of Aquarium fish,” Arnold warned carefully. “At least until it kicks in.”

“We got work in a few hours,” Frenchie said quietly, eyes still on the empty spot.

Arnold opened his mouth to argue but protested as if he knew better. Frenchie didn’t move to leave and Arnold sighed, turned and headed into his bedroom. He returned carrying a backpack, opened it up to show Frenchie a bag of weed the size of a throw pillow and brown bottles of some liquid. He tossed in two bottles of the pills Frenchie had already taken, closing the bag and throwing it to Frenchie with more than a little frustration. “Go straight…wait, where is home right now?” Arnold was asking but Frenchie left a wad of cash on the kitchen counter and left.  
Arnold looked at Hughie. “Straight home.”


	4. Chapter 4

They travelled home in silence, Frenchie swallowing another pill, finishing two more of those carrot sized blunts Arnold had slipped into the bag. Frenchie kept staring at an empty seat on the subway but he didn’t seem as afraid of who ever he saw there as he had before.

Back at the apartment Frenchie sat heavily on the edge of the fold out couch Hughie had been sleeping in, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, shoulders slumped with a fatigue that seemed deep and old. Hughie crossed to the ‘kitchen’, a camping stove, microwave and electric kettle stacked in one corner, boiled some water and made them both teas, because doing nothing made him feel awkward. He filled the mugs and brought the tea and sat down beside Frenchie, setting the mugs on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Hughie asked and Frenchie took a breath, sat up slowly and then kept going, leaning back so he laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling. His eyes widened and he swallowed and Hughie knew he was riding the wave, the drugs peaking.

“Thank you for coming with me, Hughie. I feel better now,” Frenchie said quietly, licked his lips, eyes on the dustmotes dancing in the low light around them.

“I don’t mean that,” Hughie said. “I mean…do you need to…talk?” he asked, turning so he could see Frenchie.

Frenchie took a long drag on the joint, let it out slowly. He was in an odd sort of state, seemed in some ways blissed out, riding some kind of wave, but there was still a tightness in his expression.

Hughie stared at him until Frenchie languidly met his eyes. “I heard you and Arnold, you know,” he said, voice a little dreamily. “He likes to make…insights.”

Hughie figured he might have. They had only been a few feet away. “Is what he said…accurate?” he asked. “I mean…did people give you hard drugs and hallucinogens when you were a kid?” he asked, almost, almost joking, hoping Frenchie would laugh it off.

Frenchie took another long drag, exhaled slowly, “sometimes,” he said and Hughie knew on some fundamental level it was more often than ‘sometimes’.

Hughie closed his eyes and tried not to let shock and horror show on his face. He turned slowly to look at Frenchie, his slight form and frame. He pushed away thoughts of how tiny Frenchie would have been as a kid, of a kid that small rolling like this, how vulnerable they would be, how damaging it would be to a developing mind to be flooded with such powerful chemicals and sensations. It made Hughie feel sick, was obscene, even if that was the worst thing anyone ever did to Frenchie.

Hughie couldn’t think of a single good reason that might make it okay but he heard himself ask nonetheless, “Why?”

Frenchie’s eyes chased dust motes and he blinked again, licked his lips before he spoke, his voice soft and quiet, “sometimes to make enjoy it. Mostly to make me quiet.”  
Hughie took a deep breath, felt a weight settle on his chest, a sort of generalised anger towards people who would hurt kids, hurt Frenchie He thought of Arnold’s words, about taking a bright, shining kid and breaking them.

”People hurt you?” Hughie asked quietly and Frenchie didn’t speak but he blinked and his dark eyes got just a little shinier. He nodded slowly, still laid back on the bed, his short hair brushing the sheet beneath him.

Hughie felt hollow and somehow heavy at the same time, “I’m sorry. It’s not okay. It’s not right.”

Frenchie made a face that was somehow a shrug. “It was long ago,” he said.

Hughie wanted to ask something but knew he shouldn’t but knew he’d want to if he did. He glanced at Frenchie and the man seemed to be waiting.

“What happened? What did they…do?” he asked.

“Anything they like. Everyone was always bigger than me,” Frenchie said dreamily, lips moving into a shape that might be a smile if his eyes didn’t look like he was staring into the heart of the universe.

“Are you hiding from someone? Is that why you don’t tell people your name?” Hughie asked.

Frenchie gave him a curious sort of look. “I’m not…I know you stay off the grid. I ‘ve just been wondering…why you don’t tell people your real name?”

Frenchie sat up slowly. “If I tell you…it has to be a secret. You can’t tell MM, Billy, not Arnold even. More important than Translucent. If we get arrested at dawn, you can tell the cops anything you want…but not this,” he said quietly and Hughie nodded, suddenly felt he was being made party to a vital secret.

“Of course,” he said.

Frenchie leant forwards, whisper close, heat radiating off him, his lips close to Hughie’s ear. “Because,” he said softly. “I don’t know what my name is.”

He stood, walked back towards his room and closed the door, leaving Hughie sitting alone.


	5. 5

_Days Later_

“Frenchie really is a special sort of stupid,” Billy growled as he swung the car around a sudden bend, throwing Hughie against the inside of the door with a surprised yelp. “How can someone have the kind of intuition to shove dynamite up Translucent’s arse, live so far off the grid Vought had to burn dozens of identities just to find him, and he turns into a simpering fucking puppy over some dimple cheeked feral bint?” he snarled, stamping on the accelerator.

Hughie said nothing, had said nothing since Billy dragged him out of the warehouse to go and find the others. It was one of those rages, he could tell, the kind a person ha where the best course of action is stay quiet and wait for them to run out of energy. “Who gives a fuck what her fuckin’ name is? Vought dosed her, she’s a mad bitch, they’re all in it together. That’s all we need to fucking know. And MM? Allowing it? Just chain the little prick to a fuckin’ radiator. They’ve fucked us. They’ve absolutely fucked us. All for some dumb cunts name?”

Hughie remembered his promise to Frenchie and chewed his lip. He wouldn’t betray the mans confidence but it was hard not to say something in his defence.

“Well…she’s not ‘in on it’ with Vought. She was chained up in the most awful basement in the entire world, she clearly didn’t volunteer for that. Learning why she ended up there might help explain what Homelander’s really doing,” Hughies said. “Frenchie’s thinking…big picture.”

“He’s thinking with his dick,” Billy snarled.

Hughie doubted that. He wasn’t even sure Frenchie was thinking of the woman romantically, not yet anyway. He was certainly sweet on her but Hughie didn’t think it was as base as lust. “He wants to help her. She saved his life, Billy and he seems like the kind of person that matters to. You know like, how he saved our lives?”

“You saved our lives,” Billy said. “You pushed the button. Don’t give that junkie cunt so much credit.”

“Maybe you could give him more. He took us in, which you didn’t really give him a say in, by the way. He gave us somewhere to hide, he helped with Translucent, even got him talking. We wouldn’t have figured out any of this, we wouldn’t have found the woman, and found out the Supes are dosing kids, without Frenchie,” Hughie said.

Billy glanced sidelong at him. “You talk like you know him,” he said quietly, dangerously. “You think ‘cos he’s been nice to some bitch from a basement, because he’s been nice to you, that he’s a good person?”

“There’s no such thing as good or bad people, “Hughie said and Billy scoffed.

“Oh so he has been filling your ears. Hughie, do you know what he is? Do you have any _fucking_ idea what Frenchie really is?” Billy asked.

“I do. He’s someone who came through for us when it mattered. He’s a friend,” Hughie insisted.

Billy took a deep breath and let it out. “He’s a mercenary, Hughie. A paid hitman. A _killer_. And a very, very good one.You haven’t known him as long as I have. You haven’t seen the things I’ve seen him do and not everyone had it coming. And he’s so exceptionally, creatively good at murder, that he’s the man people go to when they need to kill an un-killable Supe. Just like we did. But he’s not exclusive. He’ll kill anyone if someone’s paying enough.”

Hughie took a moment to reply. He knew Billy wasn’t lying. He wasn’t stupid, and besides Frenchie himself had calmly admitted he took money to kill people, or Supes, from ‘whoever can pay’. But he couldn’t forget the other night when Frenchie had been so out of sorts and said he began taking money to kill people so he didn’t have to keep prostituting himself. That wasn’t a lie.

“He probably had a reason to make those choices,” Hughie said, hating how Armchair shrink his words sounded but not wanting to break Frenchie’s confidence.

“Oh I’m sure. And I can’t blame Frenchie if he had to stick a knife between the ribs of some tricks who got heavy handed with him before he had hair on his balls, but the worst thing I ever saw him to do somebody was because they talked shit about France,” Billy said and Hughie wanted to open his mouth and repeat Frenchie’s story of killing a woman in an elevator being his first time. But now he wasn’t so sure. He believed, absolutely, that Frenchie had been describing someone he really saw, and really killed, that his emotions, what seemed like guilt, had been real. But maybe that hadn’t been the first time he’d killed someone. Maybe he had been much, much younger. Between Arnold, Billy and even Frenchie himself, Hughie was starting to wonder. “You’ve fallen for his the same bit those tricks used to. He’s flashed those big, sad Bambi eyes and you’ve gone right for it. Those eyes have been the last things a _lot_ of people ever saw.”

Hughie took a breath, felt the panic rising again, the panic that had become so constant since this all started. But even as it did a little voice asked him why he was panicking? He knew all of this anyway. All that was new was the _possibility_ Frenchie told a few white lies about his age when he first killed someone. Maybe he just didn’t want to freak Hughie out. And that was if Billy was even being truthful. Sure, it seemed likely he was being honest but if Frenchie could be lying, so could Billy.

He knew one thing was true, “he saw a woman chained in a basement and his first instinct was to let her out,” Hughie said. “Would you rather he left her in there? Is that the kind of person you want him to be?”

Billy started to respond but he cut himself off and stepped on the accelerator.


End file.
